The present invention relates to an MR (Magnetic Resonance) imaging method and apparatus which can shorten the imaging time, provide efficient data acquisition and image a single slice.
Related prior art includes the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 4-108427 (1992) and the article entitled "Line Scan Diffusion Imaging", Mag. Res. Med., 36:509-519 (1996).
However, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 4-108427 has the following problems: (a) Because a slice plane is selectively inverted, a sufficient time interval for spin relaxation must be secured after a particular partial region is imaged and before a next partial region is imaged, and the total imaging time is lengthened; (b) Only the MR data of the central portion within a partial region is used and the MR data of the peripheral portion is discarded, preventing efficient data acquisition; and (c) This technique is available only when simultaneous imaging of multiple slices is performed and cannot be applied when a single slice is desired to be imaged.
In the technique disclosed in Mag. Res. Med., 36:509-519, so-called "line scanning" is performed, which requires line scanning to be repeated a number of times equal to the number of pixels along the direction orthogonal to the line scanning direction in order to acquire MR data throughout a slice plane, resulting in the long total imaging time especially when the higher resolution is needed.